


Downplayer

by storyplease



Category: Original Work
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-20 14:24:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8252341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storyplease/pseuds/storyplease
Summary: In the not-too-distant future, human beings begin to develop Abilities.  It is up to trained teams to hunt down individuals with dangerous S level Abilities and end them.  But is it ever that simple, especially when a little girl with violet eyes stares directly into your soul?





	

**** I’m not much to look at, but that doesn’t stop me from being the best at what I do.  I don’t even have the most impressive skills, but hey, what can I say? It’s a calling.  My personnel file lists my Abilities as Grade F, but I try to play that off by saying that I got an F for Fabulous.  You know, because it gets the laughs.  Most of my fellow agents are Grade B at the lowest.  Grade A’s tend to mostly do desk-job work, they create containment fields and do body-guard work using their Psy-shields if they got ‘em.  Grade F means that I have one ability.  Most of my colleagues have more than one, which means that compared to them, I’m basically disabled. The only thing lower than me are the Grade G’s and they basically have such little ability that they’re generally constrained to simple lives.

Did I mention that I’m short and chubby, too?  That wouldn’t be so bad if I had some mild levitation abilities like most Grade B citizens, or the ability to manipulate my mass distribution like the Grade A’s, but let me tell you, it does encourage me to take advantage of technology and good, old fashioned exercise, even though I still have the same damn shape no matter how many miles I run.  

Some people get all the luck.  The Grade A’s are in the top 1% of all human beings.  Abilities tend to be somewhat genetic, as you’re more likely to develop A level abilities if you are related to a Grade A person, but when they tried to actively breed A’s together for awhile, there wasn’t much in the way of consistency.  A’s come in all shapes, sizes, genders and ethnicities, but the US gets the best because we pay the best wages and don’t attempt to burn people with Abilities to death for being witches.  Grade B’s are more like the top 2% after that.  Grade C’s are top 3%, D’s are 4% E’s are 5% and F’s are 6%.  Pretty much everyone after that is considered a G.  They can do party tricks at best.  Some can even make a piece of cloth flutter when there isn’t any wind around.  

Oooooh,  _ frightening _ .

My partner’s name is Charlotte.  She’s basically everything I’m not.  Tall, cherry red lips, a body that curves on and on for days (well, that’s what Chuck in the mailroom keeps saying anyway, but what does he know? He’s only Grade G), and she’s got this smile that hits you in the face like a suckerpunch.  Her only unfortunate issue is that as a Grade A, she’s got hair that permanently glows and ripples as though it is made of hot magma, oh yeah, and she can’t talk above a whisper or she’ll break the glass within a ten foot radius.  Her specialty is telekinesis, which she has sometimes used on me.  Hence the scuffed-up scruffy battle armor I wear.  

It helps, but it doesn’t look pretty.  Luckily, I’m not called upon to participate in any beauty contests, so it’s not like it matters.

I guess I tend to run at the mouth a bit, but you would too if you were surrounded all day by people who think they’re better just because they can summon printouts from the copier without having to walk over to it or brew coffee with their mind.

Ok, scratch that.  Gary from Accounting makes some pretty damned tasty mind coffee.

It’s hard not to think you’re inferior when you’re surrounded by what everyone’s calling “The Biggest Leap in Evolutionary Progress Since Opposable Thumbs.”  They’re taller, they’re prettier, they’re smarter.

And if you think that you would hate being like me in a world like this, just imagine what they think about Grade S.

That’s what my unit does- we track down possible hits for Grade S activity and we...stop them before they learn how much better they are than 99.9% of everyone else and turn into the next Big Evil.  I think that the most recent description of these potential bogies was something along the lines of “As bad as a fusion between the mythical Hydra with its poisonous regenerating heads, Hitler, Voldemort and that emperor guy with lighting hands from The Return of the Jedi. With wings, probably.”  Sounds badass to me, but I do suppose it would make the housewives cringe and be terrible for the economy.  And if you know America; you don’t fuck with the economy and live to tell the tale unless you’re obscenely rich and powerful.  So people like me stop them.  By any means necessary.  I’m sure I don’t need to spell it out to you.  The easiest way they teach you is to take the head off, kinda like a zombie, only with more screaming and blood.  I honestly can’t tell you how others cope with it.  I’m just glad that I’ve never had to do it myself in the seven years I’ve been here.

But I’ve heard the stories.   _ Everyone has. _

If you haven’t guessed already, you’ll know that most of our tips are false leads.  I spend most of my day knocking on doors and checking off boxes like some kind of obnoxious census bureau stiff.  The only difference is that I’m licensed to carry a Synaptic Fryer, its primary purpose being easy enough to figure out from the name alone.  Does what it says on tin.  Or in this case, a super space age ray gun thing that R&D created specially to deal with Grade S targets.

It was a Monday. Of course it was a fucking Monday.  Because I obviously needed to have more in common with Garfield the cat than an overly fluffy gut and a penchant for lasagna on the regular.

I checked my inbox for the daily email from the head office and printed it out. It was a short list.  I thought that we might even get finished early so that I could finally get home while it was bright enough out to walk my dog, Misty, before it got dark and cold and miserable outside, just like it always does around 5PM at this time of the year.  I even felt less annoyed about having to walk to the printer while everyone else simply made a motion with their fingers (or, if they had a high enough Ability, simply nodded their heads slightly) to retrieve their printouts.  It was like wading through a traffic jam that could give me paper cuts.

Charlotte was chewing gum at her desk when I approached her and shook the paper up and down excitedly.  She was similarly happy about the fact that our list was shorter than the others.  I guess there are some perks to being partnered up with an F like me.  But hey, I always say that quality is better than quantity.  Doesn’t make it true, but it’s nice to say.

We made good time on most of the list.  We were down to the last three people when it happened.

I could feel the hairs on my arm rising straight up as I walked down the hall in the apartment complex.  It wasn’t a big one, only ten units, most of them studios. I hoped that I was wrong, but when I pulled out the Psy monitor, the readings were twitching higher and higher until they were almost off the charts.  Charlotte was looking at her fingers, but I knew she wasn’t actually with me.  Her girlfriend, Nami, is also Grade A, and they spend plenty of time...connecting...in each other’s heads.  She thinks that I don’t know because I still use this old smartphone like the vast majority of other people who don’t have advanced abilities, but I can tell. It’s especially bad because when she gets like this, it’s like her body is on auto-pilot and her mind is somewhere else.  

I kind of envy that ability, when it comes down to it.  Being in the real world sucks most of the time when you look more like the stubby sidekick with a penchant for comic relief instead of a main character with flowing hair and awesome legs.  Most Grade A’s have to be partnered with lower level Ability individuals because they can’t sense others’ Abilities the way that we can and their powers tend to screw up the Psy monitors.  Something to do with how their own powers interfere with detection, but I’m not a scientist or anything.

“Hey Charlotte, I got this one,” I said nonchalantly, as I stepped forward and knocked on the door.  

Her eyes flickered out of that semi-aware daze that she always got in her eye when she was mind-fucking her girlfriend silly.  We may be evolving, but we’re still the same beasts on the inside. We want pleasure, connection and maybe even love if there’s anything left after that.  We’re all just changing the manner we go about getting them.  When it comes down to it, that’s all we’ve ever done.

“Sure thing, Dani,” she replied in her whispery voice, giving a nonchalant wave and leaning against the wall next to the fire extinguisher box.

The door opened slightly, and a wide brown eye looked up at me from the small opening.

“Hello,” I said, flashing a friendly smile along with my badge, “I am here from the US Department of Post-Sapien Ability Affairs.  May I come in?”

Asking nicely is a formality, and I personally think that whatever moron came up for the name of our department should be shot.  Preferably twice.  

Of course, the girl knows what I mean when I ask her to come in.  Even the youngest school children know that it is considered a federal crime punishable by immediate execution if citizens refuse to comply with a request from members of our department.  Sometimes I wonder if we’re really trying to stop the bad guys from happening or if we’re already the bad guys.  But then again, freedom-fighting doesn’t exactly fill one’s stomach or pay the vet bills. And Misty has a habit of finding and swallowing things that require surgical removal.

 

The door opened all the way and what looked like a young teenaged girl with dark skin and even darker freckles that stood out on her cheeks and forehead made room for me to pass into the apartment.

“Mom and Dad are G’s,” she said without preamble, “I’m a C, and my brothers are D’s.  But...but my baby sister….”

_ Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.  Why did it have to be a baby? _

“How old is she?” I asked numbly, knowing that I wouldn’t like the answer.

“She’s only 18 months, but she’s really smart.  She’s doing things…well, I guess you’ll see.”

“What’s your name?” I continued, trying not to pay attention to the way the girl’s eyes darted over to the Synaptic Fryer as though it was about to jump out of its holster and shoot her.

“I’m Tanisha,” she said quietly, her thick-lashed eyes locked on my weapon without any attempt to hide her fear.

“I need to ask your parents a few questions,” I said gently, “I’m going to do my best to make sure that we know everything before we proceed.”

“I thought you would be a white man with sunglasses, like on the TV,” Tanisha said suddenly, less to me than to herself, “They always have big guns and black suits and stuff.  You just kind of look like you’re about to go paintballing.”

“I’m not a suit kind of lady,” I replied, patting my chest, “Not enough material in the average suit to make room for my ridiculous bosom.”

The girl snickered at the word, and I tried to smile, but it came out forced and grimacey than anything.

She led me down to the kitchen, where a middle-aged woman was handing a bottle to a little girl who was sitting in a highchair that was pushed up against the wall  The baby girl had two puffs of hair tied into pigtails and her eyes were huge and doe-like on her little brown face.  I almost gasped when I realized that they weren’t brown like her sister’s eyes.  They were a deep violet and they turned to me immediately.  The sensation of power was overwhelming.

Her mother looked up and stumbled backwards with her hand at her chest as though my appearance had given her a heart attack.

That didn’t exactly inspire my levels of self esteem to increase at all, but I suppose there are worse things.  I probably wouldn’t be all that happy to see myself either.

The baby, too, looked me over with those curiously intelligent eyes and I felt an invisible hand come up to my face and caress me as though trying to touch me and figure out why I was here.

“Hello, ma'am,” I said respectfully, standing a respectable distance from them, “I am here about your daughter.”

“Joselle isn’t hurting anyone!” the woman replied, her face twisting into an expression of terror, “She’s a lovely little baby, does just what her mama says, and her sister and brothers are good with her!  Please!  Don’t take my baby!”

“That’s why I’m here,” I said gently, before realizing that I was being confusing and I added, “To keep you from losing your baby.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, frowning with puzzlement.

“May I see Joselle first?” I said, keeping my voice as even as possible, “I must confirm her Ability level beyond a doubt first.”

The tension grew, filling the air until it was thick and strained, but eventually the woman nodded curtly, her hand still holding a small plate of toast as though she had glued it to her palm.

“Hello Joselle,” I said, approaching the baby quietly, “I just need you to touch this little sensor to your head.  I’ll show you how I do it on myself, and then I’ll put it on you, ok?”

I took out the little suction cup part of the Psy monitor and stick it to my head.  As usual, the little blip told me how little energy I produce.  It was obvious that this was soothing to the mother, as she obviously knew that only Grade A’s have the really frightening powers.  But her eyes were still locked on my holster, and I wished that I could figure some way to conceal it so that people stopped assuming that my only job was to pull my weapon and squeeze the trigger.  

When I placed it to Joselle’s head, the needle simply banged heavily against the top of the monitor until I thought it might snap off and start spinning around and around.

Shit.

I removed the suction cup with a little pop and Joselle clapped her little chubby hands together, shrieking with joyful laughter.

I looked at the little girl before me, and I could see that behind those eyes lay a vast power and intelligence that I could hardly comprehend.  It was almost like staring at the surface of a lake that you knew might contain all manner of nightmarish creatures.

But this is my job, you know?  

I dove in.

Babies don’t think the way you or I think, not even Grade S babies.  They think in flickers and images and feelings.  Images come at you lightning fast and it can be disorienting to be inside a baby’s mind, but that’s where I was, and I needed to work quickly.  So instead of trying to explain everything to a baby who probably didn’t understand governments or Grades of powers or even why I was even disturbing her afternoon bottle, I created an image of my own.

I imagined a crystal box.  It was beautiful, little refracted rainbows playing off of the sides.  The exact sort of shiny beautiful thing that a little baby would find irresistible.

Sure enough, a small form materialized next to me.  She looked up with those eyes, and I saw understanding.  I conjured up a small box and pulled a small bright orange light from my head, placing it inside.  I did this twice and the baby stood, reaching her chubby hands into her little head and slowly pulled out this gorgeous violet nebula that shimmered and sparkled so brightly that it was almost blinding.  She toddled over and put it in the box, looking up again at me expectantly.  I placed a top on it, and then produced a tiny crystal key, locking the box securely.  Then I took the key and placed it around her little neck, which seems like a stupid thing to do to a baby, but this was all happening in her mind, so it’s not like she was going to strangle herself with it.

Then I looked at her and placed a hand on her shoulder, meeting those eyes, which had gone a rich chocolate brown just like her mother and sister.

“Joselle,” I said, “I want you to remember these words always, even as you grow up.  You have been given a gift.  Until you are able to use that gift well, I want you to keep it safely inside of you.  Don’t tell anyone, not your parents, or your siblings or your friends what greatness lies inside of you.  When you come of age, though, I want you to think long and hard about unlocking this chest.  What it will mean for you.  How it will change your life.  How it will transform this world.  If you do choose to unlock it, things are going to change.  It will be beautiful and terrifying and utterly amazing.  But the fact remains that if you do choose to use your power, I want you to promise me that you will only ever use your abilities for good and just actions.  Give healing, offer kindness, mend what is broken.  For what you have can build a world up...or destroy it.  Be a force of good.  Lord knows that we need it.”

I pulled back from the girl’s mind almost as though I had been shocked.  Joselle looked at me with those lovely eyes, kicking her legs and waving her hands up and down trying to get out of her high chair.

“Thank you ma’am,” I said to the mother, who was still leaning against the counter, watching me with suspicious eyes, “Your baby will be just fine.  I want you to forget about everything you’ve seen her do until she decides to unlock her powers again, ok?”

The woman’s eyes seemed to glaze over for a moment before she muttered, “Yes….of course…”

I turned to look at Tanisha.

“Can you keep a secret?” I asked her.

“I won’t talk about Joselle, if that’s what you’re asking,” the girl replied, “I want to keep her safe.  No matter what.”

“Good,” I replied, “Now, I need to talk to your brothers and your father.”

“Dad works early in the morning at my school as the janitor, so he’s back now. They’re down in the laundry room sorting everything out and playing foosball while watching the basketball game,” Tanisha replied, “They think that we don’t know, but I saw.”

It only took a few minutes to finish what I needed to do.

I walked out to the parking lot and saw Charlotte smoking a cigarette by the fence.

“Those things will kill you!” I chided. “I thought that you were supposed to be the next step in evolution! For all the blustering about being advanced, you sure are just as bad as the rest of us.”

Charlotte snorted and blew smoke out of her nose, which I admit, looked cool.

The rest of the day went off without a hitch and I even got home in time to walk Misty down by the river before the sun set completely behind the hills.

As I’m sure you’ve guessed, I haven’t been completely honest with you.  I may carry a weapon and look like I’m ready to fight, but my power has nothing to do with punching through walls or levitating paper or even making a killer cup of Joe.

To put it plainly, I can convince people to do anything that I want them to do.  I can talk to them, write to them, even visit their minds if they have telepathic abilities.  But when I tell them to do something, they do it.  Sure, you might think that some people might use this for evil deeds, but I’m more of a fan of the little evils, asking for an extra slice of cheese on my cheeseburger, or telling someone who looks like they’re going to leave their dog’s shit all over the walkway to pick that damn stuff up, then laugh hysterically when they get dog shit all over their hands trying to comply to my demands.  

But really, all I want is a better world, you know?  One with plenty of tasty eats and nice evening walks and vets when I need them.  And I don’t think that this world that we’re living in right now is as good as it can be- divided into haves and have nots for little more than circumstances of birth.  But those with Grade S abilities, especially the children...they’re going to change the world.  And when it happens, I want to be sure that the ones who finally surface offer the sort of change that we should have been pushing for all along.  

Because we don’t need to fear the monsters.  We’re  _ already _ monsters.

What we truly need to fear is a world where people are so obsessed with destroying those who are destined for greatness before they can come into their own. 

Oh, right, and before I go, let’s just keep this between you and me, ok?  If anyone asks you about this story, or about the little girl who should be about ten years old now if memory serves correctly, or the twenty others that I have found and visited these past several years who also hold secret boxes with the key to their power resting heavily on their chests, you’ll simply feel your lips freeze up and your brain go blank and your skin go clammy as you realize you ought to know, but you just... _ don’t… _

Does this make me a monster too? I don’t know.  If I am, I like to think that I’m one of the good ones.

But don’t we all?

 


End file.
